


Hot Chocolate

by PFL (msmoat)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5473892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmoat/pseuds/PFL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessebee asked for a story about "Hot chocolate on a very cold day". Lads style, of course!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jessebee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/gifts).



> Written for the DiscoveredinaLJ 2015 challenge: Discovered in the Holly and Ivy.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?”

“It’s me.” Doyle closed the attic door behind him. The room was dark, lit only by streetlight. “‘Strewth! It’s cold in here.”

“Hadn’t noticed.” Bodie was sitting on a chair in front of the binocular stand positioned on a small table near the window. He had on his heavy coat, gloves, hat, and a scarf Doyle recognised as his own. 

“Wondered where that had got to.” Doyle walked over to the window and peered out towards the flat Cowley had ordered a twenty-four hour obbo on.

“I thought you were with the lovely Claire.” Bodie had volunteered for the Christmas Eve stint, for which Murphy owed him two pints. “Don’t tell me she got called in?”

“Nurses and CI5 agents.” Doyle shrugged.

“Well, that was the plan, yet here you are.”

“Do you want your pressies or not?” Doyle waved a thermos at Bodie, then unscrewed the lid.

“Ah, bless you, my son.” Bodie rubbed his gloved hands together. “What is it? Coffee, tea, or—?” Doyle wafted the thermos under Bodie’s nose. Bodie grimaced. “Chocolate? Bloody hell, Doyle—”

“Yeah, yeah, beggars can’t be choosers, you know. Take what you’re offered, lad, and be grateful.” Doyle poured liquid into a plastic cup.

“I would be grateful, if I had a mate, a _partner_ , who’d brought me—”

“Here.” Doyle handed him a steaming cup of hot chocolate. “Go on, think of England.”

Bodie, face scrunched, took a sip of the liquid. His eyes opened wide. He drank half the cup down.

Doyle smiled. “Doyle family recipe, that is.”

Bodie coughed. “I think I like your family.” 

“You wouldn’t if you knew them. This was the only way my dad made it through Christmas Eve at my gran’s.” Doyle handed the thermos to Bodie, then dragged a straight-backed chair close to Bodie’s. 

“Oh, his ‘special’ hot chocolate, eh?” Bodie refilled his cup.

“Gran never knew. The first year, he’d put odd spices in it. Choked it down with a smile while everyone else recoiled.”

“Devious.” Bodie took a cautious sip of the hot liquid. “How’d you learn the truth, then?”

Doyle smiled a little. “My brother and I nicked it one year. Worth the punishment.”

“Learned you had a taste for alcohol?”

“Nah, hated it. Then.” Doyle stared out into the dark. It had been a great Christmas. The last one before Tom’s accident. He didn’t really want to go back to those days, but he wondered, sometimes, how his life might have been different. He still missed his brother. The sense of loss was always worse when it was cold, and it snowed.

“Here.” Doyle looked round to see Bodie holding out the cup to him.

Doyle took it and as he sipped, Bodie said: “Start a new tradition, eh? Just us.”

Doyle didn’t say anything, but smiled as he handed the cup back to Bodie. They passed the cup back and forth, refilling it as needed, sharing the watch in silence. Gradually, Bodie’s presence eased the ache inside Doyle, brought peace.

“It wasn’t Claire who got called in, was it?” Bodie’s voice was soft.

 _Be brave, Ray, it’s Christmas!_ “No.” And he waited to see what Bodie would make of that, of his choice.

Bodie handed the cup to him. His fingers brushed Doyle’s. Lingered. “Happy Christmas, then.”

Doyle nodded, his throat tight, but with rising happiness not grief. “Best ever.”

END  
December 2015


End file.
